IKEA Becomes First Global Company to Halve Food Waste

This case study by the World Resources Institute describes how IKEA reduced food waste by 54% across its in-store restaurants in 32 markets, demonstrating the economic and environmental viability of meeting UN Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3.

• IKEA reduced food waste by 54% across its 400 in-store restaurants in 32 markets, which is equivalent to saving over 20 million meals.
• The reduction in food waste resulted in an annual saving of $37 million for IKEA and avoided 36,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year, which is comparable to removing more than 8,000 cars from the road annually.
• IKEA achieved these results by utilizing WRI's Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard for monitoring, employing Winnow Commercial Food Waste Solutions' AI technology and smart scales for data collection, and partnering with Too Good to Go to sell surplus food at discounts.
• IKEA participated in several WRI initiatives to support its goals, including the 10x20x30 initiative—which aims for 10+ large food retailers to each activate 20 suppliers to halve food loss and waste by 2030—and the Champions 12.3 Assembly.

APA

World Resources Institute (2023). IKEA Becomes First Global Company to Halve Food Waste. https://www.wri.org/outcomes/ikea-becomes-first-global-company-halve-food-waste

Chicago

World Resources Institute. IKEA Becomes First Global Company to Halve Food Waste. 2023. https://www.wri.org/outcomes/ikea-becomes-first-global-company-halve-food-waste.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=IKEA Becomes First Global Company to Halve Food Waste |date=5 June 2023 |url=https://www.wri.org/outcomes/ikea-becomes-first-global-company-halve-food-waste |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitute2023ikea, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{IKEA Becomes First Global Company to Halve Food Waste}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2023}, month = jun, url = {https://www.wri.org/outcomes/ikea-becomes-first-global-company-halve-food-waste}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }